Mushroom Cap Half Marathon

Runners will follow an out-and-back course for the race, which starts and finishes on Birch Street in downtown Kennett Square. From there, the course takes runners first through town, which really is in the shape of a square (see the course map for more) and really does measure 1.1 square miles. After you make your way past the first mile marker on Union Street, the course keeps heading north to the outskirts of town, taking runners up to the Union Hill Cemetery and then onto the country roads that lead out from the center of town, whose history dates back to its founding in 1853, when its first mushrooms were planted. Ever since then, mushrooms have been its claim to fame, and today the mushroom farmers from the area produce more than a million pounds of the humble fungi every week. There’s even an annual Mushroom Festival in the late summer, which draws more than 100,000 to the area to take in a classic car show, a 5K run, and even the “National Fried Mushroom Eating Contest.”